A budget is about holding back. A goal is the thing you are holding back for.
Goals are your wishlist with a plan attached — the jacket, the flight, the keyboard, the reward you quietly promised yourself. Pursly keeps them somewhere better than the back of your mind, and works out when you could actually have them.
Making one
Give it a name and a price. That is enough to start.
When you want more than the basics, a goal can also carry:
- A photo, so it looks like the thing instead of a line of text
- A link to the product page — Pursly pulls in the title and picture and shows it as a card
- A category, like Clothing, Travel or Electronics
- A target date, if it is tied to something real like a birthday
- A priority, deciding what sits at the top of the list
Two answers to "when can I have it?"
Every goal tracks progress in two different ways, and they are worth telling apart.
When you could afford it
Worked out for you, from your own income and spending over recent months. Nothing to fill in — it is simply there.
If your numbers do not support an estimate yet — not enough income logged, or more going out than coming in — Pursly says nothing rather than inventing a date. An encouraging guess is the least useful thing it could hand you.
What you have set aside
This one is yours to drive. Whenever you decide some money belongs to a goal, put it toward it. That is the bar filling up.
Nothing actually moves. Pursly is not a bank, and does not hold, reserve or transfer a penny. Setting money aside against a goal is a promise to yourself that the app keeps score of. Your real balance stays at your real bank, exactly where it was.
Unlocking
When what you have set aside reaches the price, the goal unlocks.
Nothing was ever stopping you buying it sooner — unlocking is not a lock coming off, it is you arriving at the number you picked. Think of it as permission you granted yourself in advance, on a calmer day.
Once you have actually bought the thing, mark it purchased and it moves out of the active list into the record of things you saved for and got. Changed your mind? Archive it instead. A goal you talked yourself out of is a perfectly good outcome, and cheaper than the alternative.
Streaks pay into your goals
This is where a goal stops being a list and starts being a reward.
Pursly quietly tracks a few habits:
- No-spend days — a day nothing went out
- Under-budget weeks — you came in at or under every budget you set
- Weeks you put something aside — any contribution to a goal counts
- Daily check-ins — simply opening the app
Keep a run going and, when it reaches its mark, Pursly puts a bonus toward your highest-priority goal — provided that goal has auto-contribute switched on. Then the run resets and you start the next one.
So a fortnight of cooking at home does not just leave money in your account. It visibly moves the thing you want closer.
Picking good ones
Anything can be a goal, and it does not have to be expensive or sensible. A cheap book you keep not buying is a perfectly good goal — it will unlock quickly, and watching something unlock is its own kind of encouragement.
Set a few small ones alongside the big one. The big one is why you started; the small ones are what keep you going.